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Soviet secret police. An acronym for the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Suppression of Counter-revolution and Sabotage, it was instituted by Lenin (1917) and run by Dzerzhinski, a Pole. Lenin envisaged the need for a regime of terror to protect his revolution and this was its purpose. Its headquarters, the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, contained offices and places for torture and execution. In 1922 the CHEKA became the GPU or secret police and later the OGPU (United State Political Administration). The OGPU was replaced in 1934 by the NKVD.